Favorite
Old Salt Marketplace is Portland’s Circus Maximus for food lovers. On the corner of NE Alberta Street and 42nd Avenue, the city’s next great microrestaurant complex of food-focused storefronts squeezes into 6,000 square feet of bare wooden beams. There’s even a farmers market outside on Thursdays. It’s an ambitious undertaking in a neighborhood short on culinary delights. Inside the building, Read more...
Favorite
With a highly curated wine list, a room full of fermenting barrels in the back, a case of hard-to-find cheeses, and a simple lineup of flavorful comfort snacks, Cyril’s is casually stretching the form of a wine bar. It’s a key member of Portland’s exploding collection of “urban wineries,” as well as a culinary incubator and cheese heaven. But above Read more...
Favorite
It takes some major cojones for a restaurateur to admit defeat. When the Bent Brick owner Scott Dolich announced the departure of chef Will Preisch from his modernist-leaning kitchen, he broadcast an entirely new direction for the confusing (or confused?) follow-up to his beloved, farm-centric Park Kitchen. Gone are the conceptual experiments that clashed with the laid-back space. In their Read more...
Favorite
Try your luck with some vintage amusements at EastBurn, a split-level restaurant and bar on E Burnside Street in a now-defunct dance club. The layout resembles one of those house parties where the adults have a mature cocktail gathering upstairs, while the rug rats are banished to the basement with a bag of Fritos. Before you head downstairs, take a gander Read more...
Favorite
The 130-year-old Ladd Carriage House has a new life as a refurbished, multimillion-dollar project in downtown’s food scene. The kitchen mixes Portland’s familiar house-made pork terrines and wood-oven heat with Yorkshire puddings and crumpets befitting of an English carriage house. Chef David Padberg goes his own way with rabbit, putting it atop biscuits and in a garlicky Caesar—you don’t want Read more...
Favorite
Everything here speaks to my soul. Not just the drinking snacks, which are pretty perfect, but the gritty-meets-glamorous aesthetic and not one, but two turntables. In the mix is arguably the city’s best cheeseburger (at least according to Portland Monthly’s obsessive Burger Cabal) and without question, its wildest nachos, plus James Beard’s famed onion and butter sandwich, perfectly expressed. The “hot Read more...
Favorite
When Luc Lac splashed into downtown Portland in 2011, no one knew what to expect: Grand Marnier sliced through avocado-cardamom milkshakes, pho spilled out of the kitchen long past midnight, and customers happily jammed into a hangar-bay of a dining room. Thanks to black-vested brothers Adam and Alan Ho, Luc Lac is now an essential late-night dining destination, with wildly Read more...
Favorite
The conspicuously red two-story house in Sellwood’s lazy downtown feels more residential than commercial: picnic tables in the small backyard are surrounded by unpainted fences and shrub, a tone walkway, and the bustle of families. So you’ll feel no guilt letting your kids (or dog) run free while you nosh on one of Muddy’s signature organic flour pizzas with pecorino Read more...
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This cinder-block bunker of modest reserve serves culinary provocations on a street known more for hipster aspirations than for globe- smashing intrigue. Chef Sarah Pliner’s approach unfolds slowly on a seemingly random list of dishes, each its own constellation of cui- sines and visual juxtapositions. France winks at Chinatown; Japan dances with India. Think of an iPod shuffling from Ravel Read more...
Favorite
The Alameda Brewhouse, a Northeast hop spot that features agreeable edibles and décor that drapes steely modern flash over its blue-collar torso, turns 10 this summer. Brewmaster John Eaton, who’s been tending the tanks for the last four years, touts all the selections brewed on the premises: Black Bear XX Stout is an award-winner, and the Klickitat Pale Ale is Read more...